Whose Values? What Values?

July 22, 1999|By Marianne Means, Hearst Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The separation of that noisy champion of ``traditional family values,'' former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife, Marianne, is the latest confirmation that politicians who wrap themselves in moral purity are often full of hooey.

The controversial couple, married in 1981, are now living apart and reportedly negotiating a divorce settlement. It would be the former Georgia congressman's second divorce. He dumped his first wife after she underwent serious cancer surgery.

Gingrich is not the only politician who preaches so-called family values for others and ignores those principles of household peace himself.

The state of his marriage would be none of our business if he hadn't been so aggressive in his crusade to demolish his opponents as morally inferior.

Political hypocrisy is a legitimate voter concern. Saying one thing while doing another is not good public practice.

Gingrich is no longer a dominant figure on the national political stage; so his prospective divorce is something of an afterthought. But he's still hanging around, making speeches for megabucks and lobbying chums on Capitol Hill. And while in power, Gingrich blamed a mother's murder of her two little sons on the Democratic Party.

He asserted a ``moral framework'' for his plans to dismantle the domestic policies created by President Lyndon B. Johnson to provide aid to education, health care for the elderly, affirmative action to fight discrimination and assistance for poor folks. ``The welfare state kills more poor people in a year than private business,'' Gingrich once said, without offering any proof that he knew what he was talking about.

Other conservatives continue to holler for family values, catering to the religious right and contrasting their own presumed integrity with President Clinton's deplorable womanizing and bad ethical habits. Every 2000 presidential candidate has raised the issue in one way or another. Some Republican leaders say that all party candidates must pass a litmus test of spousal fidelity, although proof of accuracy would seem to be awkward.

But the moralizers ought to consult some fresh polls and clam up. Unless they are certain their own spouses will remain passive, contented and publicly silent, they are begging for a backlash.

Take Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, a leader in the Grand Old Party's drive to impeach Clinton for immoral behavior. He lectures piously on the evils of homosexuality, feminism and abortion. He would ban the procedure with no exception, even to save the mother's life. But Barr's former wife said he willingly drove her to a clinic for an abortion during their marriage.

Then there's Elizabeth Dole, a genuinely squeaky-clean presidential candidate who doesn't mind advertising it. But her husband, Bob, embarrassed her by doing commercials sponsored by the firm that makes a male potency pill and suggesting recently that he might make a campaign contribution to one of her presidential rivals, Arizona Sen. John McCain. This is not immoral but certainly bad spousal form. As Republicans of the 1950s taunted the divorced Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson: How can you run a country when you can't run your spouse?

And how about Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice, a dedicated campaigner on behalf of traditional, conservative standards of behavior. It turns out he prefers another woman to his wife of 44 years and wants a divorce. Tsk, tsk. His wife isn't cooperating and dismisses his expressed hope for a split ``with dignity.''

Fordice was a major supporter of the presidential campaign of former Vice President Dan Quayle, who swears he has never committed adultery and is making family values a centerpiece of his campaign. Under the circumstances, Fordice was forced to bow out.

What is to become of the family-values scam when so many of its prominent advocates turn out to be less than perfect themselves?

Voters aren't dumb. They don't like to be told that they are sinners, particularly by a bunch of politicians who barter their souls for campaign contributions every day.

Evangelist Pat Robertson, as responsible as anyone for the political moralizing craze, senses that its day may have run its course. A year ago, he gave up the presidency of the Christian Coalition and sold his goody-two-shoes Family Channel to Rupert Murdoch, a ruthless communications-media baron predisposed to exploiting sex to get viewers. Robertson took Murdoch's money and ran, leaving our morals to take care of themselves.

Washington has always had its share of sex scandals and marital troubles, and it always will. But the holier-than-thou clucking reached drastic proportions with President Clinton's Senate impeachment trial and acquittal. It went too far. We are sick of it.